In the shape of a red-tipped fox—

Driving to work this morning I kept hoping for slight delays and mild pauses in traffic so I could finalize a new idea. While reading through one of my older manuscripts, Quintet, there seemed a lack of cohesion for the full cycle of poems. Because primarily the series is based on a five-member jazz group, each musician gains one or two moments of full narration— yet only one instance is laid out for the full members to converse as a group. For a stronger sense of balance, a second selection of a collective narration is needed, near the end of their time on stage.

For that matter, I also wonder if the vocalist-persona needs a third lyric-poem, an opportunity for her character to perform a short song revealing more of her individual personality to the reader.

Overall this meditation process has taken longer than usual. Which explains my impatience at the lack of congested traffic. The few stop lights provided some resolutions: utilization of an extended conceit of “wilderness,” plus a manipulation of the numerous types of landscape, natural terrain, cluttered woodscapes, and human built metropolises. However, I need more phrases and structure, rhythm and content to begin formulating the meat of the verse. At this moment the main concept lacks a foundation.

•45/ In the shape of a red-tipped fox, Pan slips between trees, between shadows, merging softly with the treeline and the underbrush growing in tangles and in a series of briar knots around his ruined temple. •